I am asking myself whether I have fun when I play a euro game. I certainly enjoy them, I love the challenge and the contest and the optimisation. Things are in my control and I can touch the right buttons and see the results. Sometimes you throw in some dice to mix things up a little and get a little bit of variety, but that is just risk management, which is another factor to balance. It is a challenge and enjoyable, but as a friend inadvertently suggested last night it might not be fun. Instead fun is hilarity and randomness, the crazy coming together of coincidence and chance. Roborally is fun.

Roborally is a game of duality. In one phase a player programmes the movements of his or her robot in detailed language selecting five actions for their robot in advance of any movement. Then the robots move along their recently programmed courses and the fun begins. Why? Because even if you program your robot correctly to perform the actions you wish it to make, other players may knock or bump you off track and from that point on all your carefully calculated actions are happening in a different space and have different results.

The way I see it Roborally is a very good value game. It has solid components with a couple of standout features. The first is the detailed miniatures used to depict the player robots. These are creative and attractive and fit well with the range of silly robotic names. The second really good feature is the range of boards provided by the game. It must be pointed out that these could have been hard boards rather than softer cardboard but the fact that there are numerous boards and that they can be combined together makes for very good value and variety.

The game play has more in the way of tactics than it does in the way of strategy. And Roborally can treat you harshly. One moment you are racing towards your goal and in the next you are being bumped off the board and destroyed. Two features of game play that I really enjoyed were the programming and the degradation.

When the game starts a player receives nine cards from which they select five to movements for their board. Luck again plays a crucial part in this game. There may be several ways to get towards a goal, but if you don’t have a range of cards or the card you need in those nine then you are screwed. Imagine facing a wall and not having a card that would allow you to turn … it is kind of like hitting your head against a brick wall …. actually it is EXACTLY like hitting your head against a brick wall. So luck plays an important feature in this game. Some peoples minds work in a way which makes the programming easy and they rarely make a mistake. Others have a more torrid time and that just makes things more chaotic. Why? Because when bots bump they are moved off course.

I also enjoyed the degradation concept. At the end of each round each robot fires a laser in front of it. If your bot is in the line of fire you WILL take damage. Damage reduces the number of cards you receive each turn and in extreme circumstances will lock cards in place from turn to turn. This feature fits the them well and forces you to power down your bot.

I couldn’t believe that a game with little strategy could rate so well, but I understand why. It is fun. Wild unpredictable consequences are fun even when it is you. I admit to certain frustrations over my powerlessness in certain circumstances be that because of cards or position. Yet as I released my obsession of winning I found I had more fun and enjoyed the game for what it was and not what it was not.

I had fun playing roborally and it was almost as enjoyable as a real euro … almost.